


Hell's Heart (or High Water)

by Kieron_ODuibhir



Series: Cirque de Triomphe [40]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: (I cannot say that enough), Angst, Big Damn Heroes, Blood, Dehydration, Earth-3, Families of Choice, Family Feels, Gen, Jason Todd was a Talon, Kidnapping, Mentions of Murder, Mirror Universe, Owlman is a monster, Past Brainwashing, Torture, abuse of healing factor, offscreen Jim Gordon, send in the clowns, smartass Jason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-03-22 13:23:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3730507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kieron_ODuibhir/pseuds/Kieron_ODuibhir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Be still."</p><p>For a second he was. The command cut straight past the fog of pain to parts of him that would know that voice until he died. He froze in place where he slumped, wrist hanging loose in its shackle as the flesh along his arm knitted back together, awaiting further orders.</p><p>Then he jerked, like an electrocuted corpse, and brought his face up to glower at the man in the mask, lips curling back.</p><p>"Like <em>hell</em>."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hell's Heart (or High Water)

**Author's Note:**

> This has come up already in Dick's 'Grey Feathers' storyline, but noting here too: The little we saw of Owlman's Talons pre-Flashpoint seemed to just be your basic evil Robins, but the Talons of the Court of Owls as established in the Nu52 are brainwashed super-assassins with an _absurdly_ overpowered healing factor. (Powered by the mysterious element of _electrum_ of all things. You know what electrum is? Gold/silver alloy. That's it. That's all it's ever been. _Eesh._ ) 
> 
> In fusing the two types for this 'verse, the Talons wound up with not-quite-so-broken healing powers. I would not recommend they risk having their heads blown off.

"Be still."

For a second he was. The command cut straight past the fog of pain to parts of him that would know that voice until he died. He froze in place where he slumped, wrist hanging loose in its shackle as the flesh along his arm knitted back together, awaiting further orders.

Then he jerked, like an electrocuted corpse, and brought his face up to glower at the man with the knife, lips curling back.

"Like _hell._ "

It would be so easy to give in. Cast his eyes down and promise to obey, and do whatever it took to satisfy that implacable voice. He'd done it for more than two years. It had kept him alive. And the new boy wasn't fully trained yet. There was the possibility he could be Talon again, even now, and go back to buying his own life with other people's. Owls had two feet, right? Right.

He showed his teeth. "How about you cut my face up a little now, old man?"

His voice was thin and cracked, of course, and barely carried across the small featureless room, because in the effort to replace all that lost blood his body had used up all the water he had, leaving less than none to wet his throat. But he didn't let that matter. He _used_ it. "How about it?" he croaked, splitting his lower lip with the stretch of his not-a-smile. He was a ghost, a crow—anything but a weak, breakable child. The one benefit to this thirst was knowing he didn't have to worry about crying anymore; he couldn't if he _wanted_ to. "Carve a jack-o-lantern, Brucie? I never got to do that as a kid. Did you? You think your mommy and daddy would be happy if they could see—"

Owlman crushed his throat.

The same hand tipped his head back a second later, making sure the cracked larynx was all stretched out so the edges healed together cleanly, and he didn't have time to suffocate—Talon wasn't immortal, they both knew that very well, but he wasn't allowed to die yet.

Jason gasped for air, good rich air full of the stink of blood and pain and clean new concrete, but he wasn't sorry he'd said it. He had a lot of swallowed hate to get through, and it was looking like this might be his last chance.

Three years ago, when they'd first taken him, he'd spat blood into their white-masked faces. Today, he elected not to waste the moisture.

If the Owl did cut his face, it wouldn't scar. A thin white line, at most, if it healed very badly. But he didn't really expect to live to worry about scarring. The _bastard_ had bagged him being stupidly maudlin stupidly alone in Crime Alley, sixteen blocks from the hideout he'd started to recklessly think of as _home,_ and when Jason'd come to, strapped down like Frankenstein's monster wherever this was (not the Cave; why not the Cave?) Wayne had barely gone through the motions of coercing him into being a double agent against Jokester's gang, back during the first hour or so.

He'd agreed, of course. Too quick, probably. He wasn't a good enough liar; his counterintelligence training had never really gone beyond biting out his tongue. He'd agreed but it was seven months since he'd been Talon. He'd been in the wind much too long for the Owl to ever really trust that he was under his thumb again. Not after he hadn't seen the original defection coming.

This wasn't conditioning. This was _punishment._

It hurt worse than most of his training had, but it felt cleaner. And Jason had stopped caring all that much about pain by the end of his first year with the Court.

 _Jason_ , he said to himself, as his airway cleared and the Owl let his chin go to press something sharp into the palm of his hand, perfectly aimed so it passed between the second and third metacarpal. (And wasn't that the shittiest; hadn't been to school since Mom died but he could list every major bone, organ, and muscle in the human body because sometimes the Owl liked to be able to give _precise instructions._ ) _Something_ was a knife, he saw, squinting sideways, straight pale steel, very thin. One of his, actually. No. One of _Talon's._

_My name is Jason._

It had taken almost a year to be able to say that to Jokester. He'd had to practice, in his own head, for months.

 _My name is Jason Todd_.

It had taken that long to swallow the idea that maybe running away was doable, survivable, if he had outside help. And it'd still been impulsive when he had, that one crystalline moment when he'd realized that, if it was really true, if he could really get out, then it had to be now. He'd done worse things than kill a little girl quick and clean, but not where they could see.

He'd never been good enough, as Talon. Never measured up. He'd tried to point out, once, that the other guy hadn't brought in any hero heads, either. _That_ had taken most of a day to really heal up from.

Red Hood had almost as much history behind it as Talon, as names went, but it was all over the place, not tidy and all-in-a-row, so he'd just figured as long as J wasn't complaining about his legacy, he was probably okay. Harley had wanted to help him come up with his very own personal name, something that was just his, but he had one already, had his actual _name_ back, and he didn't especially _want_ the work of establishing a whole new street rep. Jokester's hand-me-down had suited him just fine.

Being trusted with it. They didn't even watch him, anymore. He could have killed them all, if he'd wanted, and he knew it showed how sick he was that that always gave him a warm, safe feeling, but it did. Even the ones who didn't really like him. They believed he wasn't Talon anymore.

He shouldn't think about it. Not now that he was never going back. Not that bunch of stupid idiots camped out in the slums, trying to fix things that were too broken to even find all the pieces. Not being asked what pizza topping he wanted, not little Ella with her missing front tooth— _No._ Especially not that. He had to forget she existed, so he could be sure he didn't slip up. She was going to be upset enough he wasn't around to cadge piggyback rides and extra dessert from, without putting her life in danger on his way out.

Morgue-chilly air blew across the bare skin where his shirt (not _his_ , though; that had disappeared while he was unconscious) had been sliced apart, breaking into his thoughts as he tried not to shiver. It wasn't so much pride as—shivering _hurt._ Shook his recently-knitted bones and sliced and pried the hole through his hand wider with every little back-and-forth.

In silence, Owlman carefully pinned his other hand to the table, with a matching dagger. Jason'd been kind of surprised, when he first woke up in the clean concrete smell, that the surface he was strapped to was padded instead of cold metal; it had made sense when he realized it was a _dissection_ table. All the little pins. Like Bruce wanted to figure out what was going on inside him and opted for the direct route. Take him apart and put him back together. Today, Talon. Tomorrow, the world.

"You aren't talking," the Owl observed, in that rumble of a voice that Jason wished he could learn not to be afraid of.

He coughed up some dried blood and tested the state of his voice—as rough as Wayne's, between thirst and injury, though still not as deep. "Guess you showed me." He said it as snide as he could, trying to mimic Jokester's little skipping sneer that could make anything he said sound like a bad joke.

Not that all J's jokes were bad, or anything.

The Owl ground his teeth. Not the way only Jokester could make him do, that had actually cracked a molar once, but probably more frustration than he wanted to admit, and then _there was a knife in Jason's stomach_ _**again**_ and he couldn't help it, he jerked in his bonds, arched his back and _god his hands_. God. He had a high pain tolerance. He was proud of it. But even he had limits.

He knew he'd keened like a dying hawk when the tip of the blade nicked his spine. He tried not to let himself tremble.

Somewhere outside his head, Owlman's voice said, "I broke you once already."

Jason swallowed, with a clicking sound, and breathed through the pain, even as filling his lungs pressed new tissues against the sharp edge of the knife. He could take this. There'd always been a balance, in his training, between teaching him to ignore pain so that he was unstoppable and teaching him to fear it so he'd never stray, but while torture happened in your body _pain happened in your mind,_ and his mind belonged to him.

One of the first things that kind of training taught a person, he could have told the Owl if he'd been inclined, was to pretend any flaws in it didn't exist, because all they meant was more suffering as they were ironed out. Fear meant you broke _yourself_ before they could finish breaking you _._ It looked the same as perfect conditioning from the outside, that desperation not to give the teacher any reason to think you needed another lesson, but secretly…secretly….

The blade was jerked out of his gut as fast as it had gone in, in a seep of digestive acids and gore, and Jason clenched his teeth and didn't scream and tried not to wreck his hands any worse. Hurting him wouldn't give the Owl what he wanted. Not really. Not as long as Jason could die as himself.

It had come really close to working, though. The Court's teaching method. Same as it did on the younger kids they usually took. He'd almost forgotten how to be anything but Talon. Known better than to think rebellious thoughts. Been _proud_ of what he was. Enjoyed the power he was allowed to have within their fucked-up hierarchy. Even gotten to like the sight and smell of blood, so long as it wasn't his.

In a way, he was glad it was ending like this. Before everybody with Jokester's little circus figured that out, before they understood that he was never going to be good, wasn't fit to be one of them, and he wound up alone. (It was hard to survive on the street, alone. Easier for what he was now than the kid he'd been then, but he wasn't sure it was _worth_ surviving, if you were going to be alone anyway.)

Mostly he wasn't glad at all, he was _pissed_ , and he'd have done almost anything for a little more life. Anything but walk back into that trap.

(If he'd really thought Wayne would take him back, maybe he'd have given in. He knew it, and he hated it, hated it even more than the monster inside his skin, than the fact that he would always be a killer and even J wouldn't accept him if he ever saw all the way through him. Almost as much as he hated the man bending over him now.)

"Just…one question," he said, through his aching throat, once the wound in his stomach had begun to seal, and as he did the blade that had been sinking toward him hovered still over his collarbone. He wasn't sure why, but the Owl had a weakness for questions. The petition aspect, maybe. The idea that if you were asking, there was something he knew that you needed. He sometimes answered, and he almost always let people ask. And there actually was something Jason wanted to die knowing. He fixed his eyes on the bare part of the Owl's face, ready to read the smallest twitch of expression. "Drake," he whispered. "Is he yours?"

Because if that rumor was true, then Jason didn't have to feel bad anymore, because even Wayne wouldn't do this to his own kid. He'd never seen the man have any contact with Janet Drake, but he hadn't been around eleven years ago, and the Owl wasn't a monk. It was _possible_.

"He will never be stupid enough to betray me the way you have," the Owl replied, voice pitched so low and dry it made Jason's aching bones _buzz_ , and that was probably a _no_ because he hadn't even understood the question, but only probably, which meant he still didn't know, not for sure, and he just wanted to be _sure_ , before he died, whether his replacement was one of the debts he was hauling into the dark. He couldn't even laugh at the delusion in _betray_.

His tongue ran sandpaper-rough over the roof of his mouth as he tried to find a better comeback than _Fuck you,_ but before he managed anything, a third party broke into the conversation.

Out of nowhere, the bare concrete wall to his left shattered with the particular rolling _boom_ Jason knew as tannerite, and to his surprise golden sunlight filtered in, followed closely by a wave of warmth. Had it only been a few hours since he'd been taken, or was it already tomorrow?

A female voice cried, " _Get away from my son!_ " and Jason knew the torture must be getting to him more than he'd realized, because he _knew_ his mom was dead. He'd sat by her body for hours. She had been so, so cold and it had been so long ago. And he still turned his face toward the broken wall expecting Catherine Todd.

The woman was a silhouette against dusty sunbeams, one arm drawn back, and his mom had _never_ worn a hat like that.

"Stand back," she ordered, and took a step forward, resolving into more than a black outline. Harlequin, in full motley, bells and all.

"Ms. Quinzel," said the Owl, unruffled by his exploded wall. Bastard. "Do you have an appointment?"

"No." Harley reached over her shoulder and unholstered…some kind of gun. Big. The barrel was long and wide and she trained it on Owlman with calm deliberation. "Get away from my son, _Mr. Wayne_."

Jason seriously considered the possibility that he was hallucinating. Which would be embarrassing, because he was almost sixteen and hadn't been a kid for a long time, and Harley wasn't his _mom_ , f'chrissake. She had her own kid. She hadn't even known him a year. Well, she had if you counted all that time he'd spent trying to kill her, but he'd only sort of been _Jason_ then.

The claws on the Owl's glove sank into his ribs. Oh, shit. Guns and Bruce Wayne. Bad combination. Jason had once had to take a man's arms off at the fingers, wrists, elbows, and shoulders in that order, after he'd had the nerve to point a firearm at Owlman. His heart lurched.

"Hrly," he said. Coughed a little, hoping to clear his throat enough to talk. She shouldn't be here. When he'd thought he'd do anything for a little more life, he sure as hell hadn't meant he'd trade hers. Maybe this was what he got for praying when he'd long ago decided that if there was a God, his main defining characteristic was a sick sense of humor.

"It's okay, Jason," she said, not taking her eyes off the Owl. Before he could get out any disagreement, something lunged up through the smoke and dust of the bomb site, and mighty jaws closed on Harley's right shoulder, and she was dragged away from the gap with a shout, out of sight.

The _dogs._ The fucking mutant dogs; he knew those dogs, he used to be almost the only one who could _feed_ those dogs without getting bitten.

Jason felt the tearing of the blades in his palms, and then an inch or so later, of the edges of the shackles cutting into his wrists, but only at a distance; it hurt, technically, but not nearly enough to _matter_ —if he could get free, he didn't care if it meant cutting his hands _off_. He could _kick_ the dogs. He was good at kicking.

Harley couldn't die trying to save him. He was _done_ being a curse, dammit, done surviving at the cost of other people.

"Why are you fighting?"

It was the contempt that did it, the contempt and the horrible _gentleness_ of the hand on his forehead, brushing blood-stiff hair back. He threw himself back against the table, flinging his chin up hard and fast, his teeth clacking together a fraction of an inch from Owlman's fingers. Not that it would have mattered if he'd made it; the gauntlet was too thick to bite through. It got his message across, though, and bought him another second to buck and heave at the restraints—the ones at his ankles, this time; it wasn't like he was getting back the manual dexterity for anything as delicate as lockpicking anytime soon enough to be useful, anyway, so it didn't make any difference.

"Why have you ever tried to fight me?" the Owl asked, and it was like he really wanted to know, like he really didn't _get_ it. Why people would hate him and what he stood for enough to beat themselves bloody against him and come back for more.

Maybe, if he was capable of understanding that, he wouldn't _be_ Owlman.

Jason snarled the same note as the dogs outside, and jerked. He was beyond pain, now. He didn't even feel it. But the knife on the right felt a little bit loose.

The heavy hand brushed down the side of his face, around the knot at the hinge of his jaw, and settled on the side of his throat, over his jugular. The claws on Owlman's black gloves weren't nearly as sharp as the ones on Talon's red—he found that inconvenient when handling delicate equipment—but they were plenty sufficient to cut into a major blood vessel. If Jason had had any attention or emotion to spare, he might have laughed at the thought that Wayne expected him to _care._

They pressed, and there was something stupid and animal in him that was frightened, even though most of his attention was on the snarling, cracking, ripping sounds outside, and the King of Owls leaned over him a little as he killed him one more time, slowly, accentuating his certainty that he'd have the freedom to do this again and again, as many times as it took.

"Did you think there was any other way this could end?"

He wasn't going to let him wake up from this one, Jason realized. He was going to bleed him until he blacked out, listening to Harley getting eaten, and then burn him to ashes, or whatever you did to make sure a Talon stayed down.

Why'd she have to come? Now he couldn't even say _at least I was free for a while,_ because it wasn't worth it anymore if it meant Harley got killed. Fuck, why'd she have to come _alone?_

These were shitty last thoughts, Jason reflected, but he probably deserved that, too.

Then long green limbs had shoved their way across his vision, and there was a white fist managing to sock the Owl perfectly in the jaw, driving him away from the table where Jason lay, and he would have cheered normally but now it was just furious mumbling of, "Not _me,_ hlp _Hrly._ "

"She's handling herself!" Jokester laughed, and it was a real laugh, but then he cut his eyes at Jason, taking in his condition, and the laugh went black and shrill, and J launched himself after the Owl with the kind of mad, hungry rage that made some people afraid of him.

Jason didn't stop thrashing against his cuffs until Harlequin came bounding back through the gap in the wall with a "Be right there!" for him, and flung herself into the fight raging somewhere off to the right, too far behind his table to see. Someone grunted. Someone got thrown through a door with a crash. He saw a feathered edge of cape flicker in the corner of his vision immediately after that, so the person who'd been thrown was not the Owl, unfortunately, but it flashed away again before his heart could turn over, and a second later he heard the distinctive ring of the Nth-metal end of J's hammer on Owlman's helmet.

"Team Bravo, Team Awesome, Team Ricochet, converge on Point Eggplant!" Jason heard Jokester shouting, possibly into a radio, though with him you never knew. Something thudded against flesh.

He bit through his lower lip with a _crunch-click_ that startled him, and pulled his teeth out again feeling almost embarrassed. The new trickle of blood was sweeter than the old stuff, but it was flowing worryingly slowly. And he couldn't _help._

The fight moved away through the broken door, retreating into unidentifiable thumps and crashes, and all he could do was wait. And twist at the shackles, without much hope, and try to breathe. The smell of summer was slowly creeping over the stink of blood and pain, but the stink was coming from Jason himself, so he could only catch whiffs of the cleaner air, when the wind blew right.

His jugular closed, very slowly. The bitten lip was scabbing. He told himself that Jokester and Harlequin were a very good team. That they had backup coming, and if the dogs had been running loose the Owl probably didn't have more than a few low-level guys on hand. (Maybe that was it, why he'd been brought here where he'd never seen before instead of somewhere at the heart of the Owl's little empire. Maybe making an example of him wasn't worth admitting it had taken this long to hunt him down? Or maybe it was so that, if he'd made an escape attempt, he wouldn't be breaking out of someplace whose security he'd overseen for more than a year. Or maybe…)

It felt like he waited for hours, but he'd been trained to measure time down to the second to give accurate reports, and it was really only four and a half minutes before he heard a distant shout of,

"I think he engaged a self-destruct on his way out, but don't worry, puddin', I've got that! You get Red Hood."

A few seconds later, his field of view was suddenly full of clown. Just J, and he could tell from her voice Harley must be pretty much okay but he still wished he could see for himself.

"Heya, birdboy," said the Jokester, more softly than he'd ever said it to Talon, pulling that fixed grin of concentration he got when he did something really fiddly, which was all the warning Jason had before the thin blade through his left hand was yanked out. He hissed, even though he hardly felt his hands anymore, and he could tell J had done his best to get it out painlessly—waste of time. J flinched harder than he did, with an uncomfortable giggle followed by a very careful pat on the arm. "Gonna be okay, hang on."

"Wh?" Jason croaked, and found to his frustration that he'd been silent long enough for his abused throat to lock up and all the blood in it to cake enough that he couldn't _talk_. He wasn't worried his vocal cords were ruined; he knew what that felt like. Still.

"Whatsat, JJ?" Jokester chirped, easing the second knife out and chucking it into the wall, where it stuck, quivering.

Jason coughed. "Why're y' here?" he managed, in a voice all breath and sharp cracking noises. Shame twisted his guts until it almost overwhelmed the pain of the recent stabbings. Had they noticed he was dressed in the shreds of a Talon uniform? Had Owlman told them he'd promised to betray them in exchange for his life? Had they believed it? It was true, after all.

"Rescuing you. Obviously. Wasn't easy finding this place, I'll tell ya, we almost stormed Wayne Manor to getcha out of the basement, but I got a tip from—"

" _No_ , _"_ he broke in, frustrated, especially at the thought of the Circus trying to breach Wayne Manor's defenses—there was no way they'd all have escaped alive, even if they got Computer onboard to pull another miracle hack. And all for nothing, because he'd been here, wherever it was. "Why…y'shouldn't've. Come."

J chortled, not happily, and looked up to lock eyes with him as the second wrist shackle snicked open, his eyes all dark and flat and hardly green at all.

"Jason," and he paid attention because J never used his actual name when he had so many stupid nicknames to throw around. "We'll always come."

He drew his freed arms down to cross against his stomach, shook his head. Shouldn't, and wouldn't. It was all no. "Not worth it. Y'll figger it out."

"Long as we're alive, Jaybird, _we will come for you._ " Jokester was _angry_ , Jason realized, knowing he deserved it for getting himself caught like this, and swallowed. His dry throat clicked again, and then suddenly there was something wet against his lips, and he forgot about big important worries in favor of slurping at—lemonade. The acid of it burned at the raw tissue all the way down his throat as it washed away the clotted blood, but he didn't mind, it was a tiny pain and it was _his;_ Talon didn't drink crappy bodega generic-brand bottled lemonade, Jason did that. Before and after, Jason did that.

A cool, dry hand, missing its glove, smoothed itself over his forehead and mopped his blood-bristling bangs back as he drank. "Believe me, kiddo," said Jokester, not angry anymore, but then he took the bottle away and for a second Jason couldn't remember who he was supposed to hate.

"I won't let you down again," said the voice of the man standing over him, so low and serious he almost didn't sound like himself, not helping the confusion, but the Jokester's voice would never be deep enough to confuse with Bruce Wayne's. Jason got his eyes to focus as he slotted the words into place, and swallowed again, more easily now.

He remembered the way the clown's face had gone cool and still, when he learned Jason had originally been taken off the street.

For a second he'd thought they were reconsidering whether he was worth the trouble they'd brought down by taking him, just a no-account street kid not worth rescuing, but of _course_ it wasn't that. This was J's guilty face. His eyes glittered like stones when he was angry at _himself_. You'd have to push him very hard before he'd say it, because he thought going around claiming things made him like the Owl, but so far as he was concerned the street people were _his_.

Never mind that they'd never exchanged more than a few words in passing, a hello or so in the street, one 'you need a hand?' that Jason had brushed off, and one time five years ago he had dropped J a tip. Never mind that nobody could watch over every person scrounging to survive in this shitty city. The Owl had taken an orphan out of Crime Alley, and Jokester hadn't even noticed.

And now he'd been taken from under Jokester's protection, and hurt some more.

Jason fumbled for the clown's hand with his numb one. "This is nothin', y' head case," he groused. "I'll heal. You came. Don' let me see you losin' yer smile over me."

This meant he was a liability, he realized. If Jokester would always come for him, he was a weak point to be exploited.

Except Jokester was all weak points; you could draw him out of cover by threatening random civilians. Jason knew. He'd _done_ it. That horrible heroic predictability should have gotten him killed years ago except he always managed to twist and wriggle his way out of and around death.

"You'll just hafta keep giving me reasons to smile, then, Jaybird," the clown chuckled, and pulled his hand—now streaked, Jason saw, with browning blood—free of Jason's to tip his head up and feed him more lemonade. Still on the same rubber-topped table lying in his own gore and all, Jason found himself relaxing so much that he had to fight off a rising swell of sleep.

He wondered if it really was tomorrow. He could go for days without resting if he had to, but then again pain and accelerated healing were both pretty exhausting.

Harley jogged up, her own giant hammer propped over one shoulder, looking slightly gnawed and bruised but generally in one piece. "Come on boys, let's move. I handled the bombs, but we have two minutes, tops, before Gordon's guys are in here."

Jason nodded, took a sharp breath, and rolled his shoulders away from the table. Momentum took him the rest of the way to sitting, and then he held onto his knees and dealt with the bloodloss headrush while his rescuers got his ankles loose.

"Your poor hands," whispered Harley, and he tucked them closer against his chest, trying to hide them.

"I'll heal," he whispered. Raised his head and, carefully, swung his legs to one side. "We need to move."

Owlman had left because of the sound of sirens, Jason was sure. J and Harley were awesome, but Wayne was a monster in combat, and while they could definitely match him together, even beat him, it was hard to imagine them pushing him so hard he was willing to _retreat_ , even without witnesses. He more or less owned the GCPD outright, between his two identities, but it was a delicate game of pretended legitimacy, and he _couldn't_ afford outright hard evidence, especially the kind that might find its way to outside agencies before he could have it destroyed. He would have been happy to see Jason and the clowns burn with the place, but it was the sirens he'd retreated from.

Taking out the self-destruct meant there'd be evidence to find, all Jason's puddled blood, maybe even evidence that would point directly to Wayne and not just the Owl. Not that it would mean anything; this was Gotham. That Lieutenant Gordon was on the case just made it worse. Gordon should be a good cop. He _tried_ to be a good cop. This meant, in Gotham, he should be fled, dead, fired, or very, very sneaky—J said he was pretty sure he'd caught him being the latter a few times.

But for some reason, Jason had never gotten a kill order on him, and he'd never lost his job. He wasn't _allowed_ to quit. Instead, whenever he stepped out of line, he suffered. Demotions and things for minor infractions; worse for major defiance. His son had been killed by Jason's vanished predecessor. His wife had left the family. All he had in the world was his basically-grown daughter, and his obedience was understood to be the price for her life.

Far as Jason could ever figure, Gordon was like Wayne's pet cop or something, like some people kept pet raccoons—they _could_ be trained, more or less, but you had to keep a constant eye on them, and it was hard to see why anyone bothered. But Bruce _had_ bothered. Gordon might not be as broken as Jason used to be, but he _was_ owned.

He'd arrest all three of them, given the chance.

Jason managed to walk out more or less on his own feet, though mostly under J's power, through the hole in the blown exterior wall, into what turned out to be a gorgeous day in one of the featureless gray industrial compounds upriver. A few steps later, though, he dragged to a stop at the sight of the heaps of darker brindled-gray fur that had been vicious, snarling attack dogs.

He glanced at Harley. "Did you kill them?"

She should have, really. They were bred ferocious and trained nasty. He'd watched them shred failures and the disobedient and crunch the bones a few dozen times, some after he got through with them himself, some not.

She looked insulted, though, even as she chivvied him and Jokester back into motion. "Of course not! It's just Jon's knockout stuff. You know," she added, as they picked their way along the wall, across the concrete, around the slumbering brindled forms, "I think they're part hyena? The jaws on 'em—that one there bit my bazooka in half!"

"They prob'ly are," he agreed, making an extra effort to lift his left foot over a tail rather than risk shuffling across it and waking its owner. "I'm pretty sure he had them engineered special." The things didn't laugh, though. They didn't even bark.

Harlequin hummed thoughtful agreement, checking around the corner of the building before motioning the all-clear. "Too bad we can't afford to feed them, huh Mister J? Hyena hounds, that's thematic."

Jokester huffed out an agreeing sort of laugh, but Jason frowned. "You couldn't anyway," he told her, knowing the authority in his tone suffered from his shuffle and his slur. "They're man-eaters. Killers. Nobody tames a dog that damaged. Next time you get a chance, put 'em down."

Harley shot him the look he'd come to know as her shrink-face, the one that meant she thought he'd just said something psychologically revealing, and he scowled at her, before feeling a pang of guilt through his gut, and looking at the ground instead. He owed her, he couldn't… "That's what you _do_."

"No, sweetheart," Harley answered, as the back fence came into sight, tall and electrified and with a neat hole cut into it. "It's really not."

Jokester tightened his hand around Jason's ribs. "Come on, kiddo. Everybody's been worried sick."

**Author's Note:**

> That actually _is_ what you do with a dog that's been trained to kill people. There are some exceptions, but it's legally mandated in most jurisdictions. Harley and Jokester are crazy, though, so. And people aren't dogs.
> 
> They used tannerite to break the wall 'cuz 1) it's totally legal in the US and therefore easier to acquire without a fuss than most comparably powerful explosives and 2) it's a binary compound, and Harvey was in charge of supplies. He likes things that come in twos.


End file.
